Blame it On Mike

This blog post is basically about 2 things- Zach's preschool program and the boys seeing Santa today, so you would think there'd be a few pictures- maybe a couple from the program and one or two from seeing Santa. Well, I plugged the camera in to upload photos, and it said there were 118 photos to import. This wouldn't be a big deal if I'd not cleared the memory card recently, but I cleared it just last night, which means that between those 2 events today, Mike took 118 photos. Geez! If you ever read this blog, you know that I get a little picture crazy sometimes, so having 118 photos to choose from does not help. I tried to narrow it down as much as I could, but some of them were too cute to leave out.

First was Zach's preschool Christmas program. It was very cute and went quite well, especially considering the school put all 80-something (3 pre-k classes and 4 three year-old classes) of their kids on stage at once. They sang 7 songs in all. Zach was right smack behind the microphone stand, but as I said before, Mike still managed to get a lot of decent pictures. I was in charge of the video camera, and I wasn't as good.

When the kids first came in, they were all looking for their family members. We could see Zach scanning and scanning the crowd for us, and he was starting to get a really worried look on his face, which about broke my heart. Then Mike sort of stood up and caught Zach's eye, and he broke into this huge grin and said, "There's my dad!" It was like you could see the joy and relief wash over his face once he realized we really were all there. I think this first picture is the tail-end of that smile. A little bit later he saw me, too, and gave another great grin.

Singing Here's Baby Jesus.

This is What Can I Give Him, and I like this picture because it shows how Zach sort of got stuck on one motion. Notice how he is tapping his head, but everyone else is putting their hands out. When they ask what they can bring Him, they put their hands out, but then they go on to say something about what a wiseman would bring Him, and they tap their heads (I suppose to go with being wise?), and then they go back to putting their hands out. I watched the video of this song and it's kind of funny to see where Zach gets stuck on the one movement.

Here's a video of the last song the kids sang. They had a blast, and so did we.

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After the program was over, the kids and families met in the fellowship area of our church for cookies and chocolate milk. Zach got to play around with some of his buddies, including his 2 closest friends, Caleb and Ben.

Since Mike had some time before he needed to be back at work, we had planned for today to be our visit Santa day. The mall nearest to us has a wonderful Santa- the same guy has been there every year since the mall opened when Zach was 18 months old. On evenings and weekends the line is so long, and if you know me well, you know I don't wait in line very well, especially when I have Zach and Drew with me. With our sweet little unknown factor we like to call Drew, we thought it would be best to go see Santa at a time when there wouldn't be a long line to wait in or a whole bunch of people in front of which to embarrass ourselves. It was perfect, though. Drew and I got into the mall a little after Mike and Zach, and they were the only people in line waiting for Santa. Santa was ready for the boys as soon as I got Drew out of the stroller. At first Drew didn't want to go right onto Santa's lap, but Zach couldn't wait. If you click on the picture below, you can see that, like always, Drew has 2 cars in hand. One is his "wy-wy," or fire engine, and the other is a Wheaties race car.

Santa asked Drew about his cars right away and that pretty much won over Drew's heart. Drew then let me set him on Santa's lap, which was nice because I really didn't want to be in all the pictures. Of the 118 pictures Mike took today, 48 of them were with Santa. What's neat about all the pictures he took is that they really capture a lot of Zach's facial expressions and though they are still photos, they also capture his excitement. Notice in this first one how he's talking with his hands.

Here, again, you can see Zach talking with one hand. He's also doing his nervous finger-rubbing thing with his other hand.

Santa took lots of time to talk with the boys, and had a lot of ideas of things the boys might like. A part of me wanted to draw my finger across my throat as if to say, "That's enough, Santa! Zach already wants every toy he sees in any catalog; we don't need any more ideas!" But then Santa told the boys to play nicely together and share with each other, and to listen to Mom and Dad and follow directions. I'll be interested to see if it carries more weight when Santa says it.

Eventually Drew didn't want to sit with Santa anymore, but Zach was definitely comfortable and happy.

I just think this is such a sweet picture, because Santa is giving Zach such a great hug.

Drew did give Santa a hug, but it was from the safety of my arms. I was fine with that, though. I have this picture of my nephew Cam when he was the same age Drew is now, and he's sitting on Santa's lap, face totally red, hand clenched in a tight fist, mouth open wide and tears rolling down his face. I was expecting a similar picture of Drew, but it really went much, much better than I expected. As I said, he's always sort of an unknown factor in any equation.

When we left Santa Zach realized he forgot to ask for a new driver for Mike, so I told him we could write a letter and mail it to Santa. In the meantime, I'm really trying to talk Zach out of asking Santa for that driver, because I am certain Mike does not need a new driver or any other golf club, but I don't want Zach to feel disappointed when Santa doesn't come through for Daddy. I guess if that happens, I'll just tell Zach that Santa must think Daddy already plays too much golf as it is, so he didn't want to contribute to that habit. I guess I'll just blame it on Mike. : )

Just A Brief Recap

Since our big storm last week, things have been pretty calm. Thursday the weather warmed up enough for us to actually get out of the house, so the boys and I went and visited our friends Susan, Anna, and Lucy at their house. They used to live next door to us and now live about 5 or 6 blocks away, which unfortunately is far enough that we don't see them often. The boys had a lot of fun playing with their friends and I had fun hanging out with my friend. Visiting them also made me realize how lucky I had been during the huge storm; Susan's husband was out of town (in L.A., no less!), so she had to snow blow her 4-5 foot drifts and the entire driveway one night after getting Lucy, who is just 9 months, in bed, while Anna watched a show and then watched Susan from the door. Of course, this was Susan's first time with the snow blower, too. Ugh.

Here are Zach, Drew, and Anna enjoying lunch at Anna's fun pink table.

Friday we hosted play group, and Drew took a good nap. Here's what he looked like when he woke up. He reminded me a bit of his cousin Cam with his great bed-head.

Friday night I got to go out with the play group moms for a girls night out. We had a great time eating dinner at Splash, a really good seafood restaurant, and then going to a piano bar in the East Village that is owned by a former member of The Nadas.

This picture shows (from L to R) Erin, me, Sara, Tyra, and Brea. I used to teach with all of the girls but Sara, but we love her just as much as anyone else!

Saturday was the start of my annual cookie-baking weekend. I actually had mixed up a double batch of cut-out sugar cookies and made a batch of these yummy chocolate/peanut butter bars on Friday afternoon. After a quick run to the store for extra flour, milk, and a few other necessities, I got started on the baking. Mike and the boys headed out to run some errands, but got lucky by running into Santa at the gas station near our house first. Every year on the second weekend in December, Santa hops on the town fire engine and drives through the streets talking with kids and handing out candy canes. So it's a double bonus- Santa AND a fire engine with firemen on it. Anyway, I started baking by 9 a.m., and I am not kidding, I basically baked all darn day. I did sit down for some cottage cheese and pretzels for lunch around noon (I had been stealing bites of dough here and there, so I wasn't all that hungry), and I did stop for a bit when Drew woke up from his nap. When it was all said and done, on Saturday I cut out, baked, and frosted that double batch of sugar cookies, made chocolate-pistachio wreaths (something new, and not worth the trouble of making again, I think), made some new chocolate cookies with peanut butter in the middle (also something new and good, but again, not necessarily worth the trouble in my opinion), made 7-layer bars, and at about 10:30 that night, I made Mike help me make Cornflake wreaths. On Sunday afternoon I also made spritz cookies and was going to make regular and chocolate pizzelles, but I realized I didn't have room on the plates I was putting together for those. I already have the chocolate chopped up for the chocolate pizzelles, so I'll have to make those soon! It was a lot of baking, and I sure was tired (especially considering I didn't get home from my girls night out until 1:30 a.m. and then was up at 7 a.m.), but I enjoyed it. My sisters and I used to get together to do a big cookie baking weekend, but with all the kids we have now, our lives are a lot busier, and it just hasn't worked out the last couple of years. So while I had fun doing all the baking, there definitely was a hint of loneliness and sadness in not having my sisters there to laugh and converse with me.

I tried to rope Zach into helping me with baking, but he wasn't interested. He was much more interested in getting outside to play in the snow since it was finally warm enough to get out. So while Drew napped and I baked, Mike and Zach went sledding on a huge hill not too far from our house.

Here's a little video montage of the sledding. The first part of the video is just Zach- watch for him to come down the hill on the white inner tube. Then the video transitions into Zach and Mike on the inner tube together, and we think it's a pretty hilarious clip. You can hear Zach saying something like, "I'm flying!" and Mike's laughing, and then there's an audible thump, and Zach laughs, but Mike says, "That really hurt." It turns out they sledded right into a tree, ending their ride with Mike's back hitting the tree. I'm thankful it was Mike hitting the tree and not Zach, and luckily Mike wasn't hurt badly.

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Here's a cute picture of the boys playing firemen together on Monday. I just love how they play with each other (most of the time) lately.

As a birthday present to me today, Drew decided that he would wake up before 6:00 this morning. I wasn't too happy about that, but I went in and told him he needed to go back to sleep, and he said in his sweet little voice, "Okay," and rolled over onto his tummy. Well, then we heard him again at 6:30, so Mike went in and told him again to go back to sleep. Bless his heart- he sure tried hard. It was a preschool day, and on preschool days we need to be done with breakfast and brushing teeth by about 8:20ish. Well, of course, this is what Drew looked like at 7:55 when I walked into his room.

Totally asleep. I had had his door open for a while to help him wake up, had opened his east-facing blinds so the sun could pour in on him, and I'd taken this picture of him. At least he went back to sleep, right? I did appreciate that a lot. It definitely ended up being a slightly rushed morning, though.

The highlight of my morning was definitely when my parents called to sing me happy birthday. Thanks, Mom and Dad! To celebrate my birthday we decided to go out to eat at Olive Garden, and realized about half-way through that we should have stayed home and made tacos like I had originally planned. Drew ate one bread stick and not one bite of his pasta, and Zach told me after trying his pizza, "I wouldn't order this again! I mean, I like it, but I don't love it." Drew spent most of the dinner alternating between saying mama and home, because he did not feel like being there. Good thing Mike and I are fast eaters. Oh! The funniest part of the night was that I got carded when I ordered a glass of wine. That doesn't happen very often, and considering it is my 32nd birthday and I was at dinner with my husband and 2 children, it was just a little funny to get carded. It didn't really make me feel any younger, though.

Tomorrow is Zach's preschool program, so hopefully I'll have some good photos and maybe even a little video to post.

The Storm of the Century

Winter is definitely here! After a tiny snowfall back in October that melted in a couple of hours, we haven't had one flake until a few days ago. The snow started Sunday night, and on Monday we just had a few inches. After preschool on Monday I tried to get the snow blower started, but didn't have any luck (which was just what I expected), so I shoveled with a little help from the boys. Drew liked it for a while, but then he kept falling down and it wasn't as much fun.

Monday night and Tuesday morning all the newscasters started talking about "the storm of the century" coming our way, and sure enough, we got hit pretty hard. I don't know if I'd call it the storm of the century, but it's not been good. Zach still had school Tuesday, but Tuesday afternoon the snow really started to pick up. Nonetheless, the boys and I got an opportunity Tuesday after preschool to get out and enjoy the 6-8 inches of snow that had already fallen.

Zach and I both took a turn going down the slide, which was pretty darn fun, if you ask me. It's a fast slide on a dry day, but add snow to it, and you fly down it.

Mike got home from work early, so we decided to have our neighbors Brad, Molly, and Cooper over for homemade pizza. Zach greeted them at the door with his new spy glasses (you can see both in front of you and behind you with these bad boys on) and a mustache. These were courtesy of Grandma Cynthia's sister Carol, who always sends the boys really neat Christmas presents.

Here's the group enjoying the pizza. I'm always a little nervous making homemade pizza for guests for the first time, but my parents' recipe generally pleases everyone, or else people just lie to me about it tasting good, which is fine withe me!

After dinner we watched the Charlie Brown Christmas special on T.V. and played around. Here's Drew, Zach, and Cooper posing quite nicely for me.

I didn't realize Foudy got in on the posing action until I downloaded these pictures. She's pretty cute sporting Brad's bright orange hat.

When we went to bed around 11:00, the snow was still steadily falling. I woke up around 3 a.m. to hear the wind blowing like crazy, and a good night's sleep was wishful thinking after that. The wind just would not quit. We knew everything was already canceled for today, so there was no reason to get up early, thankfully.

Mike went outside at about 8:30 to start the snow blowing so he could head out to a meeting with his business partners. It's hard to get pictures that really do it justice, but here's the drift that was against our garage door when Mike opened it. It was probably 2.5-3 feet high.

Mike was out there with the snow blower (apparently it needed gas, which explains why it didn't start for me) long enough to get the whole driveway above the sidewalk cleared and enough of it below the sidewalk for his car to get through. Although travel was not advised on any roads, he still went to his meeting (against my wishes!), and got there safely, though it was slow going because the wind was blowing so much that visibility was quite poor.

While Mike was gone the boys and I got some good playing in, including some train action inside this empty diaper box. Gotta love kids' imaginations!

Mike thankfully made it back home from his meeting safely, and after we got the kids down for their naps, he headed out to do some more snow-clearing. The tallest drifts on our property were probably about 4 feet high. Some of our neighbors easily have 5 feet high drifts, so I guess we were lucky. While Mike was out front I went in the back to clear the deck off so the dogs don't have to walk through tons of snow every time they go in and out. That was my first time venturing out today, and boy, was it COLD! That wind was nasty, so I was very thankful for my warm house and my winter clothes.

When I finished in the back, I went to the front to clear off a bit of the front porch and the steps leading up to it. I am expecting a few deliveries any day now, so I figured I should make it easier for those delivery men.

Here you can sort of see how high the drift was that went across our front walkway.

Here's also some video where you can see how hard our little snow blower is working. Thank goodness we have it, though, because a 3-car driveway and 4 foot drifts would be a major pain to shovel! Brad and Molly do not have a snow blower, and they had drifts at least as big as ours, so in this video you also see Mike with our snow blower, our new neighbor Mike with his huge snow blower, and Brad with his shovel working at Brad and Molly's house. Notice the difference between how our snow blower sort of spits snow and how the other Mike's snow blower totally throws it. Mike and I agreed that after that scene, we definitely have snow blower envy.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

This is what Mike looked like when he came in. The little ice crystals were melting at this point.

Everything is already canceled for tomorrow, which I find interesting because the snow has really stopped at this point, I think. We were supposed to have about 15-16 inches when it was all said and done, but I haven't heard any totals since earlier this morning. Tonight it's supposed to get really cold, with actual temps below zero, which means with wind chills, it will be a very bad night to be outside. I'm hoping it warms up a little soon so we can play outside and go sledding, but it might be a few days before that happens. We're supposed to get together with some friends tomorrow, so at least we won't be stuck in our house again. Zach came downstairs a little bit ago (he was supposed to be asleep) and said, "Mom, my brain just had this really good sense, and I thought, 'What if the car can't go tomorrow because it's so cold?'" I told him I thought we'd work it out, and he was very proud of the "good sense" his brain just had. Then he said, "Well, if our car won't work, we'll just use our feet!" and I had the vision of us in our van, using our feet like the Flinstones. I hope that doesn't happen!

Thanksgiving Weekend

Well, Thanksgiving weekend came and went in the blink of an eye. We had a great weekend with lots of family time.

Zach didn't have preschool on Wednesday, so the boys and I got lots of good playing in. We had some friends over and did some playing in the basement, where Drew showed me he loves dressing up as a fireman as much as Zach does.

I've been trying to figure out our Christmas cards, and I've been feeling really bad because our best family picture does not have the dogs in it. I know it's silly, but I just feel like the family isn't complete without those dogs. So I tried really hard to get a picture of the boys and the dogs. I kept thinking of what they say about actors in Hollywood- that the worst costars are children and animals. They're also the worst models for photos. Either Zach's not smiling, or the dogs look uncomfortable and weird, or Drew just plain won't sit for a picture, or something! Then I end up getting totally annoyed, and everyone gets stressed, and the pictures are worse than they were in the beginning. I never did get one I really loved. Here are 2 that did not make the cut.

Thursday morning I got up early to make the traditional Zinn family holiday breakfast- caramel rolls, souffle, and grapefruit. My family has been eating this meal on holidays and special occasions for as long as I can remember, and it always tastes delicious! The best part, though, was getting 2 calls the night before from my sister Sandy, who was making the caramel rolls for her houseful of guests as well, and had a couple of questions about the recipe. Though I was so far away from my family, there was something comforting in knowing at least some of us (I don't know if the rest of the family followed tradition or not) were celebrating with the same recipes.

After breakfast we headed over to Mike's mom and step-dad's house. We always spend Thanksgiving with Curt, Linda, and Mike's grandpa, whom we call Pa. Since we don't see them on Christmas, we also exchange Christmas presents on Thanksgiving.

Zach was excited to wear his preschool-made headdress to Grandma Linda's and Grandpa Curt's. He was very excited for Thanksgiving. In the days leading up to it, he had me make a count-down calendar for him.

Every Thanksgiving since Zach was born, we've gotten a family picture taken at Curt and Linda's. I was actually pretty happy with this picture (I couldn't believe Drew cooperated), but it still didn't make the Christmas card because the non-dog photo is better (aside from the fact that it didn't have the dogs in it).

Zach and Drew love Pa. Zach had been asking Pa to hunt a turkey for us for Thanksgiving. In this picture, Pa is telling the story about how he "caught" our Thanksgiving turkey. He didn't want to say he shot it because he wasn't sure how I would feel about that. I listened to the story intently, noticing that he never mentioned guns or shooting, but also waiting, thinking, "If Zach asks anything about how it's possible we're eating this turkey now, is Pa going to say he wrung its neck?" Thankfully that never came up! And really, Linda ordered all the food from The Machine Shed, and it was all very good. I just love both Zach and Pa's faces in this picture.

When it was time to give the boys their Christmas present, we all headed out to the garage. Curt and Linda got the boys a little Jeep Rubicon to drive around our driveway/sidewalk. Both of our next door neighbor kids have Jeeps, so Zach had been wanting one for a long time.

Here's Zach's face as he realized what the gift was. There's video, too, but it's not quite as dramatic as I was expecting, so I don't know if I'll put it up.

The boys walked to the Jeep and both got right in. So far there has been no fighting about who sits where- it's like Drew knows he's too small to drive and he's content to ride shotgun. I wonder how long that will last...

Curt and Linda's dog Winnie thought it was neat to walk along behind the Jeep. It was a cold day on Thanksgiving, but thankfully the last few days since then have been pretty nice, and the boys have gotten quite a bit of Jeep time in. I have a feeling that soon it will be way too cold for any Jeep riding.

We spent the rest of the day just hanging out at Curt and Linda's. The boys napped there (well, Drew did, anyway), and Pa hung around for a while before heading back to his home in eastern Iowa. We headed home about dinnertime and ate a light supper before watching A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.

On Friday Mike and I braved the mall and were actually pleasantly surprised. I think since we didn't go until 9-ish and the mall opened at midnight, we probably missed the rush. We managed to get everything for the little boy from the family we "adopted" with some friends and some things for the boys. It seems like we still don't really have a plan for what we're getting the boys, but hopefully we will get that figured out soon. Mike and I agreed that it's amazing how we can go out like that, get quite a few gifts, and come home with no idea how much we just spent. It's dangerous, Black Friday, and I can see how it gets people in trouble!

We headed over to Mike's dad's house on Friday night to hang out with Grandpa Kevin, Grandma Cynthia, and Aunt Katherine. Zach was especially excited to see Aunt Katherine, home from college for the holiday. We had a great meal and lots of fun hanging out together.

Saturday we decided to do something new- we took the boys bowling. Mike and I recently went bowling for the first time in about 9 years, and that got us to thinking about how much Zach would enjoy it. We were right. We got to the bowling alley when it opened and were the only people there for quite some time.

Mike and I are quite competitive in a lot of things, but bowling is not one of them. I am a terrible bowler. I have moments of greatness, but I am incredibly inconsistent, which is quite frustrating. Here's Mike working en route to a strike, undoubtedly.

The bowling alley has this ramp, which makes it very easy for kids as little as Drew to bowl.

Half of the time Zach used the ramp, and the other half of the time, he threw the ball down the lane. He loved all of it. Drew enjoyed it for about his first 3 or 4 turns, and then decided he'd rather play with his trucks.

I'm not sure what the final scores were, but I think I lost. If I'd had the bumper rails like the boys, I would have had a much higher score. I never could figure out how their balls could crawl down the lane, touch one pin, and knock over 6, and my ball could fly down the lane (ok, so "fly" might be a slight euphemism), touch one pin, and knock over 3. It just didn't make sense to me. I bet those high schoolers who were working there were messing with me, making the pins not fall over somehow or something. Either way, I did not score well. I won't say how low it was, but just know it was low. I was very glad there weren't more people there to witness it.

On our way home from the bowling alley, we decided to stop at Earl May to get some orchid planting stuff. We were only going to look at Christmas trees and buy later, but you know how that goes, especially when there's a four year-old along who is so excited to decorate a tree. It was a gorgeous day, so looking at trees outside was fun, and we picked out a nice Balsam Fir. The nice thing about going that early in the season is that we had our pick of good trees. Zach could hardly wait to decorate it, but we managed to hold him off until Sunday after church, so that the tree had plenty of time to open up.

Here's Zach showing off his new Superman ornament from Grandma Linda and Grandpa Curt.

Drew didn't care too much about decorating the tree. He put one ornament on, but then mostly he wanted to keep taking off ornaments like Thomas and Percy, and he would not let us put his Cookie Monster ornament from last year on the tree. It's still not on there! He did enjoy helping sweep up pine needles, though.

Here's the finished product- I think it looks pretty good. It's just the right size for where we put it. Last year our tree was so full, it kind of got in the way. This one doesn't seem quite as fragrant, but it's still nice. It helps it feel more Christmasy around here, that's for sure!

Silly Boys (Updated Slightly)

I've been thinking a lot lately about things Drew does that make me smile and that I want to remember, and every time I think about these things, I think to myself, "I've got to write that down!" So here they are. These are the sort of things that are probably only endearing to a kid's parents and grandparents, so if you're not one of those people, sorry! And I'm sure now that I'm taking the time to write them down, I probably won't remember everything.

-Drew is a kid with so much personality. He has a very stubborn side to him (he always has), and it comes out quite often. With Zach I've pretty much always been able to get him to do what I want without too much fuss, but with Drew, I've learned to let more go. For example, yesterday Drew and I went to the grocery store for our regular Monday morning shopping trip, and then we went to Mommy and Me Music at our church. The whole time, Drew wore his big brimmed summer hat, and while we were at music class, he also kept his sunglasses on the entire time. Today he also wore his hat the whole time we were at the library. The kid really likes hats. Here are two cute pictures of him wearing Zach's Hawkeye stocking cap.

-Drew loves the Hawkeyes, and so every time we go into Scheel's or HyVee, or anywhere that has a Hawkeye display of any sort, he shouts, "I-ah!" I think he's saying "Hawkeye," but it really sounds like "Iowa," so usually I say, "Yes! Iowa Hawkeyes!" I love the smiles we get from people and the fact that my son recognizes that the tiger hawk means Hawkeyes.

-I don't know how or why Drew ever started this, but for some reason, many nights when we say, "It's time to go get ready for bed!" or "It's time to go take a bath!" Drew stops what he's doing, drops to his knees, and crawls to the stairs. Once on the stairs, he climbs up one stair at a time, stopping every stair or two to pretend to be asleep. It's some silly game he loves to play, but he made it up on his own. Now, of course, Zach does it with him, but originally it was just Drew.

-Drew loves to pretend he sees elephants in books, and lately this elephant thing is creeping into other areas, like when we're driving. He doesn't say elephant usually, but he makes his elephant sound and raises his arm like a trunk. He first started doing this on the plane to Denver back in October, when we were reading a book about farm animals. He does the elephant sound/sign, and I say, "You see an elephant?!" He says, "Yeah," and then I say, "There's no elephant!" and tickle him. He loves this game, and again, it's something he started on his own.

-Drew uses the word "shoot" in the right context. I heard him say it the other day, but wasn't sure I heard him correctly, but then a little later he dropped something and clearly said, "Shoot." It really cracks me up to hear it coming from his little 20 month-old mouth. He also says "shit," but only when he means it as "sit." I learned my lesson when Zach was about Drew's age and haven't cussed since.

-A couple of weeks ago we moved Drew from his high chair to a booster seat at the table. When Drew saw it on a chair he knew it was for him, and right away he wanted to sit in it. He was so proud. I hadn't even said the words "booster seat," but he kept pointing to it saying, "Boo-boo!" Here he is sitting in it for the first time.

-On Sunday night we were at a friend's house, and Mike and Zach left early to go to Mike's basketball game. When it was time for Drew and me to leave, we went out and got into the car, and Drew suddenly started frantically saying, "Dada! Dada! Dada!" and pointing to the front seat. I explained that Daddy and Zach were at Dad's basketball game. We went home, and as I pulled into the garage, Drew was jabbering, saying something to me that I couldn't understand, but I could tell he wasn't happy. I got out of the car and walked around to get Drew out, and he was definitely upset. I said to him, "Drew, I don't know what you want. What is it?" He said, "Hoop!" which I knew meant basketball. I asked, "You want to go to Dad's basketball game?" Drew answered with "Yeah," which is what he says instead of yes. So we went to Mike's game, and Drew was happy as could be. He's talking so much, but still a lot of it is incomprehensible to me, even though he knows just what he's saying. So it's really great when we have a moment like that where he conveys a message to me that I actually get.

-Drew loves to count buses on the way to Zach's preschool every morning. As soon as we are about out of our neighborhood, he shouts, "Usss!" Some days we see 10-15 buses, and other days, when we're running a little behind, we see only 3 or 4. When we see two or more buses together, Drew always says, "Two!" He also shouts this anytime he notices two of anything. I wonder how long it will be until he can count to three...

-Zach loves to "scare" us by shouting "Boo!" at us all the time. Of course, like the book The First Rule of Little Brothers says, "The first rule of little brothers is always do what your big brother does!" So, Drew likes to count and say, "Boo!" just like Zach. It's really cute to see/hear him count. Basically he goes like this, "Deh, deh... boo!" And when he "counts," he moves his hand up and down as somebody would when they are counting on their fingers. He gets a big kick out of all of this.

-Drew still uses sounds to identify a lot of different things. He's been doing this for a long time, like saying "moo" when he sees a cow, or "woof" for a dog. A couple of my recent favorites are the ways he identifies a few Sesame Street characters. He's seen parts of Sesame Street a few times, but rarely has he seen a whole episode. I feel like the Muppets that used to be on Sesame Street aren't on as much anymore, so the sounds he uses to identify them are more from hearing me attach those sounds with them. For example, when he wants to hold his stuffed Cookie Monster, he makes a sort of "arghrarghargh" sound. When he sees Ernie, he copies Ernie's laugh and goes, "Heheheh." And for the Count, he goes, "Two! Ah ah ah." I have to admit, I might be a little sad when he starts calling them all by name!

-Here's Drew enjoying his new Elmo slippers. Originally he loved them and wanted to wear them everywhere, but lately he doesn't want them on. I'm not sure if they make his feet really hot or if they're tough to walk in since they're so heavy where Elmo's head is, but for some reason he isn't as into them lately. I still think they look cute, though!

Three funny things Zach has said in the past few days:

1. "You have a lot of lines on your forehead." Said to Mike tonight while we were getting Zach in bed. I guess we're getting old and wrinkled (or at least Mike is).

2. "I'm flickin' cold!" Said after his shower the other night. At first I tried to ignore it, and he pointed out to me what he said, so I asked him where he heard that. Mike and I don't say "flickin'" ever, but we might be guilty of saying "flippin'" or "frickin'" at times. Zach said he made it up on his own. So then Mike said he probably shouldn't say that and I suggested the alternative of "really cold" and made a mental note to myself to use "really" in place of the alternatives.

3. "Wow! There's a lot of black people!" spoken not so quietly at Cheesecake Factory the other day. We were sitting enjoying a family lunch, and three African-Americans walked by, and Zach noticed. It was shocking to us because neither Mike nor I have ever called attention to anybody's skin color. Granted, we live in a very predominantly Caucasian area, so it is not all that common for us to see African-Americans, but it's not like this was the first time for Zach. Anyway, Mike quickly started a conversation with Zach while I hid my face and tried to compose myself (you know how I have problems with laughing when I shouldn't), and then we both tried to talk to Zach about it. The thing was, Zach didn't say anything inappropriate, and how do you explain to a 4 year-old (so he understands) why he shouldn't say what he said? Basically we told him that we don't call attention to people's differences and that some people could have been upset by what he said. I knew a moment like this, where Zach commented on someone of a different race, or someone who has a disability, etc., would happen some day (and I'm sure it will happen again), but it still caught me off-guard!

On a totally different note, Zach read his first book a couple of weeks ago. We've been working on sounding out words and putting letter sounds together to make words, and we got some B.O.B. Books. They're easy books with just a few words per page. I will admit, his comprehension on that first book was not great, but he was working too hard sounding the words out to really focus on what was going on. Since then he's read a couple of others to me, and already his comprehension is improving. We need to work on sight word recognition, and I have been searching all over for these Sight Word Post-It Notes that were recommended to me, but I cannot find them anywhere! I can order them online, but then I have to pay a bunch for shipping (more for shipping than for the actual notes), so I think I should just make my own. Anyway, it's a small step, but I'm still proud of Zach. I might have a video of him reading that first time, but it's getting late, so I don't think I'll mess with posting it right now.

This evening while I was making dinner, the boys were playing in the basement, and it was so great to just listen to them having so much fun together. I could hear Zach telling Drew what to do (in a nice way), and it seemed like they were racing. Then I'd hear Drew laugh, and then Zach would say, "Ok, wanna do it again, Drew?" Later I found out Zach would say, "Ready, set, go!" and they would take off running, and then Zach would wrap a blanket around Drew and tackle him, but "not real hard," as Zach told me. They played on their own for a good 20 minutes. This is becoming more and more common, and I love it. I recently got them these little light up snowman ornaments, and they love to shut themselves in the bathroom and watch their snowmen change colors in the dark. It's just such a great feeling for a mom to hear her two kids having fun together. If only they could always be happy with each other!

20 Minutes Ago

It's about 9:00 p.m. right now, and just about 20 minutes ago Mike and I were sitting on the love seat folding clothes and watching Modern Family when we noticed Zach standing behind us in the kitchen. We had tucked him into bed at about 8:15, so we expected him to be asleep or nearly asleep. Mike said, "Zach, what do you need, Bud?" Zach replied with, "Uh, Mom, I have something you have to get a picture of!"

Here's how he looked when he said it:

Obviously he was tickled with himself. I couldn't resist getting a quick picture of him pulling his shorts up like that. This will be a great picture to show his girlfriend one day!

So we went upstairs, and he got his stuffed animals all situated in his bed and got himself tucked in with them, and then he said he was ready for me to take a picture.

After I took this picture and showed it to Zach, he said, "Oohhh, that's cute. But I'm squinting." I told him that was ok and that it was time for him to go to sleep. He said as I was walking out the door, "I liked watching your show! It was pretty good!" We have no idea how long he was standing there, but it seems to have been a while. This isn't the first time he's snuck up on us like that, so Mike asked me when I came back downstairs what we should do to put an end to it. "Well, probably the first step is to not indulge it by taking pictures..." Sometimes I just can't resist that kid, though.